Watch Me Disappear

was a total loser, but,” she pauses dramatically, “I’ve been talking to this guy, Wes, online, and I’m supposed to meet him here.”
    “Oh,” I say. I’m not sure how to feel about this. Am I tagging along on some kind of blind date?
    “I know, it’s stupid, right? Like, online dating? But he seems nice,” she says.
    I was under the impression that Missy, like me, had not had any luck connecting with anyone else online. I thought we were here to stick together and scope out the scene. And what if this guy turns out to be some forty-year-old sex freak?
    “He’s here. I saw him a minute ago. With some other guys,” she says.
    “But he doesn’t know what you look like, right? I mean, you don’t have a picture on your profile,” I say, realizing as soon as I say it that she probably sent him a picture. My stomach is churning.
    “I sent him one from my cell phone,” she confirms.
    “So you’ve, like, talked to him?”
    “Yeah, a few times.”
    “Wow.”
    “I should have told you sooner,” she says, her voice rising like a question.
    “Probably.”
    “Don’t be mad,” she says. “I’m so glad you were able to come with me tonight, Lizzie. I would be so nervous if I didn’t have a friend to back me up.”
    “Yeah,” I say.
    “And anyway, wasn’t the whole point of coming here to meet people?” Missy forces a grin.
    She wants me to cheer up and go with her to meet Wes. I guess I thought the point was to meet each other, and already I’m being pressed into service as her defensive guard. I want to shout, “Meet people? I haven’t even really met you yet!” but instead I just nod.
    “So I look all right?” she asks again.
    “Yeah, you look great,” I answer.
    “Ok, let’s risk it,” she says, walking back into the pavilion.
     
    *          *          *
     
    Wes and his friends are a grade behind us, which makes me feel a little better about the whole situation. We might be the new girls, but they are still lower on the totem pole. Also, Missy is a good two inches taller than Wes, which cracks me up, but she doesn’t seem to mind (or notice). On the whole he seems kind of nerdy. Wes and company are not the guys who get all the ladies; they’re probably just psyched to have two senior girls hanging out with them.
    Missy is as friendly and enthusiastic with Wes and his friends as she is with me. She keeps up a steady stream of questions, half the time answering them herself. What she has in book smarts she seems to lack in social sense, but her outgoing nature is working in our favor, so I decide to just go with it.
    Our little group—Missy, me, Wes and his three pals—move back to one of the tables far from the speakers so we can talk. Mathletes though they are, they are knowledgeable sources of school gossip. It doesn’t take long before I am totally engrossed in the dirt they’re dishing. Apparently Maura’s friend Katherine, the pageant queen, was hospitalized for bulimia in ninth grade. No one seems very sympathetic about that, and behind her back she is still called “Retch.” The boys insist she deserves no sympathy because she considers everyone to be ten steps beneath her, something I have experienced firsthand. I am disappointed they don’t have much dirt on Maura, but they give us little tidbits about almost everyone else who walks by our table.
    “That kid,” Wes says, nodding his head toward a tall, thin, brown haired kid who is buying a cookie at the bake sale table, “He’s the one to beat.”
    “To beat?” I ask.
    “Yeah, he’s got the highest average in the senior class. He’s won the high average award the past three years, so unless someone can knock him down this year, he’ll be valedictorian.”
    “Him?” I ask. The kid in question looks like some kind of wide-eyed farm boy, not like a valedictorian. He is tan and athletic-looking, but there is nothing cocky in his walk or his expression. If I had to guess just based on appearances, I would say he is probably of average intelligence at best but great with big animals like cows and horses. It is hard to picture him acing a calculus exam.
    “Yep. His name is Hunter Groves. Valedictorian and star of the soccer team.”
    “No kidding,” I say.
    “He’s a nice kid,” Wes adds. “Usually the number one guy is a serious geek, but Hunter’s ok.”
    I either hate Hunter Groves or love him. Maybe I am even madly in love with him. It may be shallow, but the guy of my